The dragline has become the dominant tool for stripping overburden because of its flexibility and other advantages, but constant efforts are being made to continue to improve dragline productivity. One critical productivity factor is the time required for each digging cycle. With conventional single boom machines, the cycle includes spotting the bucket in a start position under the boom, dragging it toward the machine to a filled position, hoisting the bucket, swinging the boom to a dump position (usually at about a ninety degree angle to the line of digging), dumping, returning the boom to digging position, and again spotting the bucket. Raising and lowering of the bucket by the hoisting mechanism are at least largely accomplished during swinging of the boom between digging and dump positions, but the time required for raising and lowering is substantially less than that required for swinging, so that swing time is an extremely important factor. Swing speed can be increased to some extent by reduction of inertia loads, increase of swing power, etc., but such efforts generally yield only a modest increase in speed which may be more than offset by increased costs, possible effects on machinery reliability and the like.